My eyes latch onto Thomas as he gives me the most smug grin in his life.

"Gotcha."

In my frustration and embarrassment, I grab my things and stand to leave, but Thomas's hand is holding my own. I pull and pull and pull to get out of his grip. He won't let go.

"I'm sorry, Lucy. Please don't go. Here look at my list."

His face shows slight remorse, but more than that, it shows sincerity. In his other hand is a paper with the title, "Lucy and I's Joy List."

I heave a heavy sigh as I sit down aggressively as I throw my hand out for the list. He gives it immediately.

I study the list. I study it once, twice, three times. My frustration and embarrassment is replaced with happiness and surprise along with a side of laughter.

He managed to create a list of 10 activities, yet it is filled with scratch marks, X's, doodles, and small messages of 'try again', 'nope', 'no,' and more. I can see some of the activities he wrote before like "Build a birdhouse" or "Go to the movies and watch something you'd never choose."

The ones that are left intact are delightful. Some surprise me since I find it hard to believe he has never done these before, and others fill me with elation.

One in particular stands out to me.

"Write letters to each other?"

Thomas rubs the back of his neck and runs his fingers through his hair. He takes his time dawdling and avoiding my question until he finally gives in.

"I just think it might be fun."

I'm not so impressed by his answer, and he knows it because he pouts and folds his arm like a child while he tells me more.

"I never really wrote letters with any except when my mom forced me to write thank you letters for birthdays and holidays. I always thought having a pen pal would be cool, where you could talk about anything. No pressure. I figured we could exchange letters with each other. We don't have to do it."

I think back to all the times I would write letters. I shared a similar experience with Thomas, where most letters I ever wrote were for relatives or family friends, but I tried to write letters with Charlotte for a little while. It didn't last long. Jack and I never exchanged letters although I always thought it would be something nice to have.

"I want to do it. Let's write letters to each other."

Thomas perks up as I reassure him that yes, I want to do this.

"Should we send them through the mail, or should we exchange them when we see each other?"

"I vote we exchange them when we see each other, but we should still put them in envelopes and address them."

"Oh, absolutely. We're not heathens, Thomas."

Thomas grants me a smile, and I give him one in return. 

The coffee shop sits quietly as the only sounds we hear is the sound of keyboard typing away, the soft voices of girls complaining about their history assignment, and the clicks and buzzing of the equipment at the counter. The sun has hidden away behind some clouds as the glow of the string lights and lamps brighten up the inside of the shop. The smell is coffee and lemons, spreading across the entire room. The velvet, plaid couches are cozy and warm as Thomas and I sit in each other's silence.

"So the plan is I meet you at your place at noon on Saturday, we exchange our letters, we make lunch, then we go to Starling Park for our picnic?"

I nod approvingly and throw in a thumbs up for good measure.

Thomas nods in agreement with a tiny whisper, "Perfect."

I stare at him as he stares right back at me. We both settle in at this moment as we think about our upcoming plans.

"As I said, I thought we should plan for Saturday since I'll be busy on Friday, but we should still do something this week after you're done at the library! What do you think? Should we do a mix of activities between both of our lists?"

Thomas simply nods at me as he tells me to look between the two lists and settle on what things we should do together.

I scan both our lists again and again, trying to find the perfect formula considering this will be later in the day, he will have just gotten off work, and he will also need to return to work the following morning. I must also consider that we don't need to meet everyday. There is also the question of when to write each other letters. I tuck that away in my back pocket since I don't think there is any rush to get into that.

I narrow down my options as I think about what we could possibly do with the time we have between today and Friday.

"So far, I've settled on these five-"

"Five," he says, astonished by the mere number.

"We don't have to do all five, but I think we should have plenty of options. What do you think?"

"Yes, the more the merrier. At least we'll have a plan, and we can move things around if need be."

I reassure him that yes, we should have more options than too little, and we can adjust them according to how we are feeling, what we think we will enjoy the most, and more. We begin the quiet debate of if these are good options, where I suggested to them that we could go roller skating in a skatepark, we could write in the cafe, we could sing karaoke, we could draw portraits of each other, and we could do board games except instead of all night, we could do board games until a reasonable hour.

Thomas explained that we should keep in mind the budget and time we want to put towards each of the activities, but I think we can handle them.

"What would you want to do first?"

Thomas thinks for a very long time as he stares off into the ceiling of the cafe as if it has the answers secretly hidden up there. I follow his stare and look up to see if the answers are hiding in the white ceiling staring back at us.

He shifts to look at me when I turn my head, so I can look at him.

"Did you find the answer in the ceiling?"

"Can you believe that I didn't? How ridiculous is that?"

We both chuckle as I await his answer on what he would like to do next. On one hand, I think he is stalling, and on the other hand, I think he is tired.

"You should have slept in today. We didn't meet until so much later. Is it a habit of yours to always wake up at the same time you'd wake up for work?"

Thomas answers with a yawn.

"I think it's a good habit for my sleep and for my well-being. Don't you know the saying? The early bird catches the worm?"

I give Thomas a look to show that I was not born yesterday. He just laughs at me as I shake my head.

"I think we should start with writing in the cafe. I mean we are already pretty used to the atmosphere here, and I think it would be fun. We could write whatever then share them with each other. Who knows, maybe our stories will be so good that we should submit them into a writer's contest! After that, I like the idea of doing portraits or playing board games all night. I think everything would be chill enough that we can enjoy ourselves in the evening. Plus, we wouldn't have to travel far or pay too much for supplies."

"None of the other activities would cost that much money."

"No, but do you happen to own your own roller skates? What about padding? With karaoke, we probably have to travel far to find a bar that has one, and there is even the chance that we might not be able to sing the whole night! Now, how fun would that be?"

"Okay, okay, okay. I get your point."

Thomas and I are just staring at each other as we begin to piece together the week we will have together, and we will get up to. It's hard to believe that something like this would have occurred simply through one note I left in a book. Now, here we are, sitting and practically cuddling together on a couch in a cafe.